Principle 7: Reserve a daily time with God for self-examination, Bible reading, and prayer in order to know God and His will for my life and to gain the power to follow His will.
Step 10: We continued to take personal inventory and when we were wrong, promptly admitted it.
“So, if you think you are standing firm, be careful that you don’t fall!” – 1 Corinthians 10:12
The key verse for this lesson is:
“Watch and pray so that you will not fall into temptation. The spirit is willing, but the body is weak.” – Mark 14:38
God has provided us with a daily checklist for our new lifestyle. It’s called the “Great Commandment”.
Jesus replied, “‘You must love the Lord your God with all your heart, all your soul, and all your mind.’ This is the first and greatest commandment. A second is equally important: ‘Love your neighbor as yourself.’ The entire law and all the demands of the prophets are based on these two commandments.” Matthew 22:37-40 (NLT)
There are three ways to do a Step 10 inventory:
- Ongoing – We can do this periodically throughout the day. The best time to admit we are wrong is the exact time that we are made aware of it! Why wait? We need to make amends ASAP! We will sleep a lot better at night!
- Daily – At the end of each day we need to look over our daily activities – the good and the bad. We need to search for where we might have harmed someone or where we acted out of anger or fear. The best way to do this is to keep a journal! Then the next morning as promptly as we can, we need to admit mistakes and make our amends.
- Periodic – Every tree months, get away for a “mini retreat.” Bring your daily journal with you. Pray and read your daily entries. As God to show you areas in your life that you can improve over the next ninety days and the victories that you have made in the last ninety days! The Bible gives us instructions on how to avoid the necessity of making an amends in Step 10.